I haven't seen it in the English language media, but President Ma flew three foreign legal experts to Taiping Island to help support the ROC claim to the island. This is Ma's last, vicious little gift to Beijing: attempting to tie Taiwan and Tsai Ing-wen to China's South China Sea claims.

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2 comments:

Michael called the the essay in the Diplomat "It's a fairly stupid set of uniformed fantasies" but I didn't see that. The only part that seemed like fantasy was the writer's view of Tsai. He seems to think that she is likely to be a power crazed dictator-wannabe who will end democracy to prevent the KMT from every coming to power again because she is completely enmeshed in the most pro-independence group of the DPP.

His other observations, that America is no longer the country it used to be, that China could take Taiwan militarily, that Chinese leaders might find domestic Chinese reaction to an invasion of Taiwan more supportive than disruptive if Taiwan declared independence, all that it doesn't take many extremists to lead policy in a country are all very reasonable.

Tsai seems like a moderating influence and I would guess that the extreme factionalism mentioned in the essay will not increase on her watch. But who knows what could happen if a another Ma gets elected after her or a DPP president intent on digging up bones of the past and punishing every KMT member who participated in or benefited from the oppressive martial law period?

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